


The Air is Crusting

by woollen_pharaohs



Category: True Detective
Genre: Blood, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rehabilitation, post-show events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 01:39:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1326997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woollen_pharaohs/pseuds/woollen_pharaohs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marty makes Rust stay with him until he gets better, but their relationship forms into something else. Meanwhile, Marty tries to rekindle his relationship with his daughter and Rust takes up painting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Air is Crusting

He's getting pretty tired of being in the bath, but he can't bring himself to get out. Rust closes his eyes and submerges his head in the water, his hair floats, his skin goes lax and his hearing blocks. The water's heavy, a weight on his body, pushing him down.

_I am Rustin Spencer Cohle but what am I doing?_

_I am ... Rust but where am I going?_

He blows out a portion of his saved air through his nose. What happened to the times when he used to just live life? Back in that shack, the bar, the beer, Crash the wordless man. When things were simple and void from complication. How many times has he sat in this bath, pondering not the meaning of life but the meaning of _his_ life. Like he's got something to do but he doesn't know what yet, like he's got someone to impress but he doesn't know why. The light's brighter but has he got to put shades on to see it?

 

Marty hears his mobile ring from beneath his pile of papers. As he flips it open, the time reads 02.05.

Maggie's voice is quiet on the other end, hollow, "Marty?"

"Mags. It's late."

"I know, I've just been thinking..."

"About what?" Marty asks, closes the lid of his laptop, leans back in his desk chair.

"About you, and Rust. How is he?"

"He's fine. Well, he will be. I uh, I've decided to closed down the office, work from home. Rust won't have no nurse come in, guess I've gotta look after him," Marty laughs awkwardly.

"Good, I'm glad,"

Marty doesn't know what to say next. Nothing else is really happening in his life right now. Business is good, he's in demand, but at the same time he hasn't accepted anything yet. He's been working on an old case, one he had back before the Lang investigation reopened. Missing persons, same old same old. He doesn't want to get into anything big until Rust is back on his feet. Not that he's expecting help, he just wants to be available.

"Marty?"

"Yeah?"

"It's hard for me to say this, but you're a good man."

"I'm sorry..."

A loud beep repeats in Marty's ear, the end of the to and fro.

 

 Marty knocks on the bathroom door, "Rust, it's been a few hours, 'bout time to get out."

No response. He knocks again, starts to get worried. Rust had only been back from the hospital a few days. Marty had insisted Rust stay at his place until Rust was back to his usual self. Marty can't deny it took some convincing.

Marty jiggles the door handle, locked. He calls out again, still no response, so he turns to the side, pushes his weight hard against the door until the lock breaks.

Rust's head lays on the side of the bath, knees bent. The water's a murky red, darker swirls coil around his stomach and in the midst of it all Rust's in some sort of daze, staring off into some void. Marty rushes over to help Rust out of the bath. As soon as Marty touches Rust he snaps out of his dream, takes in his surroundings.

Marty lifts Rust out of the bath easily, the man might be fit but he ain't heavy. Marty sits Rust's hands on his shoulders and starts towelling the trembling man down. The towel quickly turns red-brown, he doesn't say a thing as Rust starts to cry.

 

The city's too full of people. They're all trying to fit in the one area, stepping all over each other just to claim a spot. They're choking against the walls of the highrisers, scraping against the asphalt roads. Rust can feel it wrapping around his neck. It's not like Rust isn't appreciating Marty for letting him live with him. There's two kinds of heat and he doesn't want the kind that's made by people getting too close, bustling about in crowds, rubbing the wrong way 'til they explode. He wants the heat created by the beat of the sun on the dirt of farms, pushing apart the growth from the soil, forcing its way there, pure infertility. He needs the open spaces, the emptiness. That heat that keeps us apart but keeps us wanting to get closer, Icarus and the sun.

Rust sits in his wheelchair, lifts his shirt up, allows Marty to redress the wound.

"How does it taste today?" Marty asks, a ritual.

"Like isolation."

 

Rust stands out in the cold night air, wraps his dressing gown tighter around his waist, wincing at the pain, though it is truly absent. He takes a drag of his cigarette, let's the drug fall as deep as he can take until his lungs force it out. Rust feels at home, at peace. He can walk out of his house and walk for miles before meeting another person, that's just the way he likes it.

Marty found their new place. Despite what others might think, Marty's a pretty good money saver. He has enough to pay for a quaint little cottage in the countryside of Louisiana, far enough from the big cities for Rust, and not too far for Marty to feel like he can't easily see his family if he ever wants to. It's a two bedroom, but only because Marty wanted a room to work in, and you know, to watch the TV. He could multi-task pretty damn well.  

Clouds block out any hint that there's another world out there, leaving Rust to watch the movement of the trees in the night as the wind sweeps through them. The ash from his cigarette will, at some point, find its way to the leaves of the trees, lodge between the bark, or it will pass by, stuck in the wind, never to touch another living thing again.

It's better being out here, but in some ways it's bad. Rust feels guilty about how isolated it is, worries that Marty's too far from people. Rust always read Marty as the kind of person who liked being around people, who liked getting to know others, making friends. There was once a chapter in Rust's life where that was his deal too.

Then there's the insomnia. It wasn't much of a problem back in Lafayette because he was getting better, his body was repairing itself and he hadn't much choice but to lie around in bed or in the bath and wait for it to fucking heal already. But now that the last of the stitches are out, he's able to move around, allowed to feel restless and edgy. It's worse because they share a bed now, and he's always torn whether to try and lie still until sleep comes on or to shuffle his way outside without waking him up.

It's nights like these where he feels like taking off into the woods, running bare feet until the twigs and stones have cut up his feet too much.

Hands wrap around Rust's waist and warmth from inside, from the blankets and the bed, and from the love of his best friend, envelope him.

"What are you doing out here?" Marty asks sleepily.

Rust speaks but his mouth is dry, croaky, "couldn't sleep."

"Don't get lost," Marty says, "I'm right here with you,"

 

Marty shuffles closer across the bed, leans in to kiss Rust. Chapped lips, whiskery moustache, Rust slowly opens up to him. It's a different heat, slots into a separate category than the heat of cityscape vs. landscape. It's the warmth between lovers that he never wants to go away.

Marty's always gentle, careful with Rust's bones, with his wounded skin. And in doing so, Rust sees the colours vaporising off Marty in all shades of passionate, forming swirls in foreplay and thunderbolts in the act. The first time Rust saw Marty's colours was when he realized where the colours were going, what they were doing, what they meant to him and to his world. It's Marty shining a light through the glass, spreading between them a torrential rainbow. The times after that, the feelings Rust receive from the colours, it doesn't seem possible, but they grow consistently, an ever expanding galaxy.

Marty's hand slips beneath Rust's bed shirt, traces the lumps of scars in the skin of Rust's abdomen. Rust rests his head against the wall, watches Marty.

"How does it taste today?" Marty asks softly.

"Like love."

 

"Marty, it's Maggie,"

"Mags, how are you?"

"I'm fine. How's your new place? Is Rust settling in well?"

"Yeah, he loves it. Well, I see him standing around a lot, you know, doing that staring off into the distance thing he does,"

"Sounds like he's bored,"

"Maybe,"

"Hey, it's kind of short notice, but would it be alright if Audrey stays with you this Friday night? She's tracking an art expo so she can sell her work, it's meant to be a big one, artists get sponsored through it, she tells me. Anyway, she's passing through on Friday, thought I'd better call up, make sure it's alright before she shows up on your door step."

"Um, uh, sure. For just one night?"

"Yes, I think so."

"That's fine, great. Um, I mean..."

"Marty you don't have to be worried, she's a grown up now."

"... does she really want to see me?"

"Of course, you're her father," Maggie says sincerely, "she wants to know you, she wants to have you in her life again."

Marty pauses, "is she okay with Rust being here?"

"Yes, she's aware of that. Okay, I've got somewhere to be, but I'll let her know it's fine. Can you text her your new address please?"

"Sure."

 

He has to do some preparing before Audrey arrives, get rid of rubbish (most of which is in Marty's room), mop the floors. There isn't actually much to do, the main part is that he has to go and buy a fold out couch so his daughter actually has something to sleep on.

In Rust's red truck on the way home, couch strapped in the back, Marty's hands sweat against the steering wheel.

"Rust... what... what am I meant to do with her? I mean, how am I meant to entertain her?"

Rust doesn't answer.

"What am I meant to say to her? What if I can't think of anything to talk about? What if she doesn't like my spag bol anymore?"

Rust laughs, "no one likes your spag bol Marty,"

"You told me you did, asshole,"

Rust falls calm again, places a hand on Marty's thigh, "She's probably not the same girl you knew Marty, but she's making the first step to bring you back in her life so just see how she behaves and act accordingly."

"What the fuck kind of advice is that? You saying that if she's angry with me, I should be angry too?"

"No I'm saying you should accept you fucked up and try and see what she wants, maybe she just wants to start over, adult to adult. This first reconnection is integral to the rest of your relationship, it's important you do it right."

"You don't think I know that?" Marty sighs, exasperatedly.

He sits forward, grips the steering wheel.

"Are you going to help me or not?"

"Fuck, what do you think Marty?"

 

Audrey arrives late, a typical Hart. Marty greets her, hugs awkwardly, and proceeds to help bring in her luggage to her room. After placing the last load in her room, Marty comes outside again to see Rust holding up a painting of Audrey's, rapt.

"That one's _Future Landscapes_ ," Audrey says, perched beside Rust.

"Can I see the others?" Rust asks.

"Sure,"

Audrey takes out her canvases, props them against the car so Rust can examine them. Marty remembers the sixteen year old girl he thought he knew, dressed in black, making statements. He assumes her art would be gothic, whatever that means. Marty doesn't know a lot about art, the technical wording fell short with him.

Despite wanting to better understand his daughter, he didn't quite 'get' her art. They're paintings of surreal landscapes, detailed sprawling cityscapes, dystopian ruins of once-cities, fallen prey to dust and desert. Rust goes back to the initial painting, a blue tornado sweeping over a starry sky, a figure at the base, arms spread wide.

"They're really good," Marty says, an obligation.

"Want to try?" Audrey asks Rust as she takes painting supplies out from the boot of her car.

Rust nods, eyes wide as he looks from the painting to Audrey.

 

Just like Rust's old flat, there's not much furniture in their new house, just the essentials. As for 'public' areas, there's just the fridge and the dinner table set which came with four chairs. The main room is an open kitchen facing what's meant to be a lounge room, but Rust doesn't use it for anything else but lying down on the wooden floor when he feels like it.

Rust sets Audrey's painting up against the wall by the window, then helps Audrey set up for painting. Audrey's a good teacher, runs though the basics with him and then lets him experiment. He uses water colour to paint out the colours of his life, to illustrate on paper how vivid they are to his self, in hopes that recording them will lessen their impact on his ability to be.

Marty, not a creative bone in his body, pulls up a chair to watch and listen and talk occasionally. Audrey sits cross legged, sketchbook in her lap, sketching plans for her next piece. Rust sits with one leg bent, the other folded underneath, his long wispy hair falling across his shoulders, makes long strokes across his canvas.

It's a peaceful visit. She talks about her inspirations for her art, about the journeys she's made from beginning to paint, to now, how she pours portions of herself into each work, how each factor represents a part of her soul. He makes her spag bol for dinner and she asks to stay again on the way back from the expo. In the morning, Marty and Rust help pack everything away again, she takes one of Rust's paintings to see if it will sell at the expo.

Marty waves to her as she drives off, he grips the door handle, trembling.

Rust embraces Marty, rests a hand over Marty's shaking hand.

"Thank you, thank you."

 

Audrey comes back to visit again after the expo, says she got a big offer on the _Future Landscapes_ painting, and that Rust's painting was sold too. Only a week had passed since she last came but by that time Rust had transformed the living room into an art studio. He's the neatest artist Audrey's ever seen, with paint pots and utensils all lined up, organised and well treated.

She doesn't stay the night but she says she'll visit again. She leaves a present for Rust, his favourite painting of hers, with a note saying, _everyone should look at art the way you do_. It hangs in their bedroom now, Rust says it tells him a different story every night.

 

Audrey doesn't have to find an excuse to come visit anymore. She comes out once a month, sometimes twice, and every time she comes with art supplies. She brings different things each time, different paints, bases, tools. Marty even takes up screen printing, even though he never wears the shirts he prints onto. Rust takes to wrapping old crinkled paper across his canvas, if it rips, it rips. He likes the way the water drips off his paintbrush, water seeping into the creases of the paper, creating narratives through the folds. These stories remain only for a short time, evaporating in the air, a story only in his memory.

And with time, although it's difficult and painful, Audrey is able to open up to Marty. She laments about being distant as a teenager, about feeling like she had so many worries and anxieties and that she couldn't get help from anyone, that she was alone. That she's sad that Marty wasn't there for her, didn't pay enough attention to her, ignored her, and that she's here, as an adult woman, to start over, to get to know her fathers again.

 

On the porch, Marty and Rust stand, hand in hand, and they wave off Audrey for the hundredth, time.

Rust plants a kiss on Marty's forehead, says, "I do like your spag bol."

"I fucking knew it."

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
